St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1887-05-05

BABY'S IMAGINATION.
Don't Play Upon it-Miseries Of Miscon-
captions.
By Marion Harland.


By Marion HarlGnd.
We have said that our children are
born "believing all things" Conscience
is a graft upon memory. The child il
warned to avoid certain sin, or not
i to repeat an Offense, and little by little
distinguishes by these helps between
good ana evil. Judgment is the fruit
of experience. Imagination is natur-
al growth that in early years before
baby has studied perspective threat
ems TO root out everything else. The
infant mind teens with "wOnder stO-
ries." In his outlook black shadows
impinge directly upon radiance, and
everything is in the foreground.
We think and speak of the absolute
dependence of our little ones upon us
imagine because they multiply ques-
tiOns by question, that they empty
4 heart and head into our ears. Where
q as, they keep more to themselves than
8 we do. Something holds back the
child from cOnfiding to the tenderest
of mOtherss the opinion he has formed
& for himself, the fancy he had nursed
into gigantic proportions, the haunting
fears that never leave his waking
! thoughts. What is the subtle motive
s that keeps him silent throughout the
3 process of reasoning and the pain of
conviction A word would scatter
4 his breads, calm sentence bring bal
ance and beauty into his world, but he
doesn't give opportunity for either.
Why did not we in those far off, un-
forgotten times when we manufactured
--9ur own hObgOblins and kept the key
of our skeleton closets even more jeal-
. Ously than now; when the darkness
l was peOpled with awful shapes and
\ solitude, vOcal-why did we not give
bur worst terrOrs vOiceq Our nurses
4 frightened us with tales of DOGGY and
ghost; pointed out cracks in the cell
ing, defining trap doors, through
which dreadful creatures had a way of
dropping upon the beds of unreasOn-
able and wakeful children; we were
beset behind and before by lions that,
like the beast following Christian in
the Valley of the Shadow of Death,
came on with hollow roaring and at a
great padding pace-yet we never
lisped syllable of our infantile ter
rOrs to human soul.
Shall | ever, | wonder, lose the
agony out of the recollection of the
torture / endured in consequence of IL
conversation held between my father
and Il neighbOr over their cigars as to
the practicability of opening the Pana-
ma canal The neighbOr-a bald man
with a strained voice. held that the
consequence of the ''cut" through the
lsthmus (he spoke as il it were about
IA days work for a stout labOrer) would
he the SubmersiOn of the eastern shore
lands of our continent, the sea level of
one ocean being thirty or forty feet
higher than the other. Ny father
listened gravely and before he expires
sed his opinion in full my bedtime
came. My nurse was nanny of the
most indulgent stamp, but | never
thought of telling her why took so
long to say my prayers or why my
teeth chartered, although the night
was mild. When my mother looked
into my room on her way to bed | was
wide awake and surprised her by ask
ing how high my window was from the
ground.
"About fifteen feet" she answered.
"My little girl is not foolish enough to
think of robbers, | hope 7"
| turned my face away with II sleepy
mnrmur. | could not tell her that |
had listened, hour after hour, for the
swash of the salt tide, yet hoping that
we might be above the crest of the in
coming flood that, again and again,
deceived by the rush of the wind in
the tree-tops, | had jumped out of bed
and strained my eyes into the moon
lighted eastern distance, installing the
CLINT of the beams on the tossing corn
fields for the leap of the waves. We
were $50 miles inland, but that did not
lessen the danger to my apprehension.
AS days went by and we remained
high and dry, and there was no more
talk of submersiOn, my dread subsidized
as silently as it had been born.
Forty odd years have brought the
nearer than on that night of unspoken
horrors. The seal set on my lips then
was the same that holds back the con
fessiOn of your child's fearsOme fancies,
her chimerical speculatiOns. Children
are more apt to keep terror than joy to
themselves. 1t may be that they
shrink from clothing in words what
fills their souls with fright, lest the ut
terance may bind the fear more Sc
curely upon them. Or language, us
they can command it, is Il vehicle too
weak To bear the weight of the thing.
We only know that they suffer and
conceal; set out in the strength OF
glorious anticipation of digging up the
pot of gold at the end of the rainbO
and unearth-what their elders find
there every day-Heaven help us all !